Ruby Red
by Nyah
Summary: For her 18th birthday Dawn wishes for a place where they all might feel a little more normal. It doesn't go exactly as planned. Must be Tuesday. Buffy/Spike. Sookie/Eric.
1. What Would Anya Do?

**Disclaimer:** No nouns you recognize are mine. That's goes for the person, place, thing, and idea varieties.

**Note:** My first attempt at anything Buffy (and maybe last!). Apologies to those of you who inevitably know the time line far better than I.

**Ruby Red**

**  
****Ruby Red **

New Orleans, February 2006

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" Buffy declared with a decisive chopping motion of her stake hand.

"I second that!" Willow shouted with a pretty uncharacteristic amount of conviction. "I, also, am being kidded. Definitely. Double definitely. Gay here, remember? And not the happy kind. Right now, anyway." That was more like it.

"Come on guys," Dawn chided, doing her best to sound casual rather than whiny. She wanted a semi-normal eighteenth birthday. Just a mild amount of age related trouble with a couple of friends. That was all. "It's what Anya would have done." A little more difficult with the friends in question being a witch and a Slayer. And gay and sister, respectively.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Buffy said, looking down at her attired-for-an-evening-out torso. "Did I wear my 'What Would Anya Do?' t-shirt again without realizing it?" She twisted on the ball of her foot to get a full view while she plucked at the scalloped hem of a deep purple halter. "Nope. Will, did you wear yours?"

"Jewish," Willow reminded her. "And I don't think even the liberal sects have accepted Anya as the Messiah yet."

Dawn grinned at them both. She could already see it on their faces that they'd cave. Even on this. Today they would. "I'm eighteen," she said, making a mental note to try to play this new legal maturity card as little as possible to preserve its impact.

"And I'm your big sister," Buffy said, apparently not at all concerned with just how played out that card had been like five years ago.

"And more importantly, this is a strip club," Willow pointed out, face awash in neon greens and purples from the lighted windows. "The kind with boys." The neon lighting made her Icky Face substantially more effective.

"Look," Dawn said patiently, coaxing them toward the door, "I promised Anya she could throw me a surprise party when I turned eighteen. And you know how she was about event planning."

"Anya made you promise she could plan your surprise eighteenth birthday? Isn't that...." Buffy paused to consider and to rummage through her purse. "...Exactly something Anya would do."

Dawn decided to keep the high ground on this one and suppressed a 'duh.' "Right. And a strip club would definitely be on Anya's itinerary. Gotta celebrate my new right to view nudity. It could be worse, I could have demanded a carton of cigarettes and chained smoked them all."

"Or gone really overboard with the scratch offs," Willow said helpfully, still eying the front door warily.

"Fine," Buffy said, charging through the front door and jabbing her ID at the bouncer a little violently and then rounding on Dawn who was still outside. "But you know I would not have bought you cigarettes."

"I know. That's why yours is the nudity," Dawn called back and showed her ID to the bouncer with a nervous-proud smile.

The bouncer was looking a little confused by the time Willow was up. "We're just really excited about the... the men. And the naked." She said, nodding at Dawn and Buffy. "Girl's night out. Yay."

##

"Girl's night out should have more girls," Willow declared sullenly.

"Shake it off, Will," Buffy said in a half joking, half soothing tone and pushed her mixed drink across the table. "Or have some tequila."

Dawn made a face- Buffy was definitely rubbing in the remaining drinking age rule- and then turned her attention to the far more important task of teasing Willow who, a few minutes ago, had attracted the unwanted attention of one of the male dancers. "I think Javier kind of took care of the shaking."

"Yeah!" Willow agreed with a kind of choking noise in her throat. "He had the shaking covered. And the wrapping of the man parts in... glittery... ribbon. What ever happened to thongs? Couldn't there at least have been a thong?"

"Well it looks like you've got the merciless teasing covered, Dawn," Buffy said, standing. "So I'm going to the bathroom."

Dawn couldn't have wished for better timing. Just when she thought Buffy was probably out of earshot, a bit of a commotion started up at the door. Dawn heard a familiar voice raised in a familiar way. Annoyance. "Mate, I'm sure you like lookin' at all the pretty, young poofs that come round here but you can't think, for a second, I might be under eighteen. Even pretty as I am."

A few minutes later, and (amazingly) without violence, Spike, dressed just like her memories, presented himself at their table.

Willow gaped for sufficient time and with sufficient silence for Dawn to greet him properly.

"Would you look at that," Spike said, eying her sideways. "Niblet's all grown up. Maybe two-bite sized now. Could be."

"Toodles!" Dawn cried before remembering that he wouldn't understand the nickname she'd started calling him in her head (or sometimes with Buffy, when Buffy was in the mood to joke about Spike, which was almost never). She saved herself the explanation by launching herself square into his undead arms.

Spike wasn't one for lingering hugs, even after two year absence and presumed deaths, so the hug was quick but Buffy was quicker.

"Spike!" Her voice cut through the otherwise deafening base like a hot knife through I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.

Newly minted young adult and old as dirt vampire turned toward the blonde with the bullwhip vocal cords. Dawn looked at her sister with an even mix of excitement and anxiety. Spike looked at Buffy with... well who really knew with them?

"Spike," Buffy shifted between a forward and backward foot like she couldn't decide between stunned elation and shocked horror or which direction either emotion required. "What are you...? What are you doing... here?"

"Alive?" Willow tacked on.

"Good one, Willow," Buffy said without taking her eyes off the vampire in the strip club.

"Well, Dawn asked me to pick something up for her, didn't she?" Spike said like it was all perfectly obvious. But Dawn noticed that he looked almost as shell shocked as Buffy and he had _known_ that she was alive and that he'd be seeing her. "Seemed it'd make me a rotten old bastard to stiff her on her birthday."

With that, Spike reached into the pocket of his duster and produced a pack of cigarettes. "Don't much like the idea of you taking up smokes, Bit," Spike said, presenting them to her anyway.

"Spike!" Buffy cried again, her big sister sense breaking through even a very thorough case of shock and awe.

But Dawn accepted the cigarettes with a 'thank you' and promptly turned the pack around and presented them to Spike. "Just a little something I picked up. A 'welcome back to life' gift," She said.

"Oh, you shouldn't have," Spike said with perfect politeness, accepting the his-then-hers-then-his-again pack.

"But what you should do is tell me what the hell is going on," Buffy said, competing with the base again.

"Does this mean I owe you the scratch offs?" Willow asked.

"See, I figured for my birthday," Dawn began. "I wanted everyone... you know, a new...." But she didn't get to finish because Willow had ratted her birthday girl status out to the hostess on the way in and it was time to face the consequences.

The spotlight found the back of her head as a male dancer bounced his way through the tables with an unfrosted cupcake and a candle. Some weird mix of Happy Birthday replaced the heavy base. Then the most beautiful man Dawn had ever seen stepped out onto the stage. He had black hair and lashes so thick she swore she could count them from her seat. His face was Sistine Chapel worthy. Or at least GQ.

Her friends were equally stunned, so she was saved, momentarily from any awkward questions as the man approached her, loosening his tie and proffering a bottle of whipped cream. "Um..." Dawn gulped. But a more articulate little voice in her head said, _happy birthday to me._

She looked up nervously at her friends, since she was the only one among them to have taken a seat again after the big Spike is Alive reveal. Buffy was gaping at the dancer almost as much as she'd gaped at the aforementioned reveal. And Willow, despite her protestations of sexuality, was a bout to start drooling. Spike, Dawn expected, to be wearing that 'trying not to be jealous' face but instead he looked as rapt as any of the women.

Maybe more so.

Maybe....

"Buffy...!" Dawn raised the alarm at the same time that Buffy broke her trance over the stripper to follow Dawn's gaze.

Spike was still staring, eyes gone yellow.

"You still have a soul, right?" Buffy hissed loudly, crossing the distance between her and Spike that a few minutes ago had been an unofficial DMZ. She gripped his arm so that her nails dug in.

Spike shook his eyes back to blue. "Yeah. Still got it." But a few seconds later his eyes were passing amber and on their way to deadly and Buffy was holding him by both arms. "Can't you smell it?" He asked.

They weren't exactly making a scene. Sure, Spike was being restrained and all but the club's attention was on the gorgeous specimen of maleness that was the stripper. Unfortunately, the stripper's attention was on the not-too-shabby-specimen of vampire-ness that was Spike. He'd frozen like a deer in headlights a foot or so from the table, giving him about six more until it was all pointy teeth and brow ridges. "She's holding him back." The dancer observed in a voice that probably would have been sexy as hell if it wasn't all dry and shaky. "Can she... do that?"

"Yeah... he's not... she's, um, she's strong," Dawn finished lamely.

But the dancer didn't seem to hear her. He sprayed a messy blob of whipped cream on the cupcake in her hand and said, "Make a wish, birthday girl."

Dawn was pretty sure he was supposed to have lost more of the clothes before the wish part but the guy looked so terrified (and Spike looked so ready to snap) that she didn't protest. It wasn't the most intimate of settings for the kind of sappy wish she had in mind. But she'd thought about her birthday wish long and hard and she wasn't going to pass up on it for lack of a decent setting. "I wish," she said, "I wish, sometime soon, we can all be in a place where we can be happy-- somewhere where that's even possible. Somewhere we feel... normal. As normal as possible."

There was a beat. She should have been blowing a candle out but the candle had never been lit.

Then the look of fear let the dancer's face for an instant. "That's perfect," he said. "Granted."

"What?"

Then Dawn noticed that the candle was lit. The wick must have been too long because the flame was kind of huge. It definitely threatened the integrity of the cake. Or, wow, maybe her hand.

The little light pulsed once, twice, then exploded outward and Dawn was caught in the blast, the bits of her rearranging with the shrapnel of light. It was like being caught in a universe exploding into life, like she was riding the leading edge of newly made space and time. Some part of her, some buried echo of memory that once belonged to the Key said that it wasn't like that at all. It was that.

The first thing she knew in that new place was the feel of its pavement. The second thing was the word, "ooof." The third was the the collected "ooofs" of her friends.

Spike was the first to recover his feet. He looked around, eyebrow raised. "All that flash to get us out to the lot?"

Buffy was next, standing and rubbing her her bruised backside. "Yeah, but it's not the same parking lot," she said.

Dawn felt a strong feeling of fault coming on. "I meant the place thing metaphorically," she muttered.

Willow, reasonable or just stunned, read the red, jazzy script of the nearest building's front door. "Fangtasia. Wait _Fang_tasia. Do you think the 'g' is silent?"


	2. Thongs?

**Disclaimer:** See part 1

**Note:** Thanks for sticking around for another chapter of the experiment.

**Chapter 2**

"That's all I got," Dawn said, holding out offerings pretty similar to what Buffy had already dug out of her purse.

"See," Willow said with a shake of her head. "That's why I never understood those tiny, little purses. Now we're out here in the middle of nowhere and you two have nothing to defend yourselves but not working cell phones and lip gloss!"

"Oh, like you've done much better, Red," Spike said, yanking a cigarette from his mouth abruptly to demonstrate just how exasperated he was by their ability to be stranded while in the midst of a modern city. "Not improving on the situation much with a bit of oregano and a pair of thongs."

Cue embarrassed cricket silence.

"Thongs?" Willow asked with quiet horror.

When Spike realized his error the cigarette went back into his mouth as violently as it had left. "Bleeding Americans gotta change the name for a thing every thirty sodding years. How's a fellow supposed to keep up? Oh whatyacallem?" He said, gesturing at the sandals Willow had dug from her bag. "Flip-flops."

"I'm not an endurance high heel girl," Willow said with much relief, holding the foam and rubber flops on her hands like mittens. "I'm only good in the sprint."

"Like _you_ came prepared," Dawn fired in Willow's defense while Willow was busy calling that 'oregano' all its long, magical, and probably Latin names. "I'm sure that if you were stranded on a desert island the one thing you'd want to have with you is a Zippo." Dawn glared at the lighter that was his only contribution to their pooled assets.

"'Course not," Spike said in a reasonable voice even though as things considered, a lighter was probably there survivaliest thing. "I'd want Bear Grylls. He'd build a boat out of coconut husks right quick and if none are at hand, he's bound to be chock full of vitamins. Win-win." Spike grinned. "In fact, shoulda had him around last time I tried to close a Hellmouth. Keep that in mind next time, Slayer."

"So back from the dead but still crazy," Buffy said, rolling her eyes. "Some girls have all the luck."

Dawn refrained from mentioning that 'win-win' implied benefits for both parties and it was hardly a win for Bear Whoever if Spike ate him. That would have just brought up the awkward fact that Spike was now morally inclined _not_ to eat people.

"Plus," Spike went on, ignoring Buffy's sarcasm as a matter of course and going to game face. "I'm certain sure I bag the 'guy who brought the most useful stuff' prize just by bein' here."

"Alright," Dawn said grudgingly, shaking her wristlet for stray change. "Points for fangs."

"Hello! Slayer here," Buffy said, brandishing a stake that she'd pulled from somewhere. Dawn sometimes suspected that being the Slayer provided Buffy with some mysterious extra body cavity for keeping stakes. She'd assume that her sister sewed sneaky spy-type pockets into her clothing except that when Dawn borrowed said clothing she never found any evidence. Plus, given a needle, thread, and the task of sewing a pocket, Buffy would probably succeed in accidentally opening a new Hellmouth. Or at least in maiming herself. "If Spike gets fang points, I totally get stake points."

Willow looked ready to claim magic points but a voice that was distinctly not one of theirs cut her off.

"I know it's not my business but you really don't want to try to take that inside."

Dawn whipped her head around looking for a threat but finding only a pretty blond woman who was about her own height. Not that those adjectives and 'threat' were in any way mutually exclusive traits of course but at least there were no immediately apparent claws or horns.

"What, somebody in there's got a severe pine allergy?" Buffy tried, maybe trying to distract the stranger from the fact that she was a girl armed in congruously with a Blackberry and a stake with the utter lameness of the joke.

But the blond woman turned an odd look on Spike who'd dropped game face and then, in a tone that was almost scolding, said, "You _could_ have told her, you know, that no one's going to find that funny. Some joker tries to bring a stake in every couple of months so it's not exactly novel either. Might as well yell 'bomb' in an airport."

"Uh," Spike looked at the women for help. "Do I know you, love?"

"Where are my manners?" The woman chided brightly and pushed her purse up higher on her shoulder to free the hand she held out to Spike. "Sookie Stackhouse, pleased to meet you," she said with a smile Dawn thought was very slightly... manic. Maybe it came from having to introduce herself to people as 'Sookie.'

Spike looked more than a little dazed but he gave his name in reply and the girls followed suit.

"So, ya'll comin' in or what?"

"Fangtasia. It's a bar?" Dawn asked with the definite feeling they were missing something. Her scans of the parking lot had only revealed a bunch of parked cars and a line of people waiting to get in.

"Well yeah," Sookie replied. "Vampire bar. Only one in Shreveport."

"I'm in," Spike said immediately.

"Vampire bar?" Willow asked, her eyes rolling around in that searching for answers kind of way like directions might be written on the sky. "Like goth themed? I'm not wearing any black at all," she lamented.

"Uh... Sookie," Buffy said, in her best friendly voice as opposed to her sounds friendly but is actually taunting voice. "We kind of already had a night out planned and then we.... kind of wound up here by accident. It's Dawn's birthday. We don't need to go in, if we could just use a phone...?"

"None of you have been in a vamp bar before," Sookie said with a nod as if she was putting the pieces together.

"No...yes--" Buffy and Spike started to say but Sookie cut them off with another pointed look at Spike.

"Well obviously," she said, inclining her head toward the vampire, allowing him... something. "Come on," Sookie said, strutting off in not at all sensible shoes. "It's not as scary as all that and you can use the phone in Eric's office."

Dawn turned what she knew was an unmistakable, 'what the heck?' expression on Spike.

He just shrugged. "Dunno, Bit. Guess she thinks I'm part of the eyeliner/nail polish crowd."

"You are," Buffy reminded him.

Spike sputtered over a comeback for a second before coming up with, "Well, so are you." Then he muttered something about not having done the kohl since Dru.

Sookie walked right up and cut the line.

"Sookie, it makes the humans feisty when you do that," the bouncer said in a bored drawl.

"Sorry, Pam."

"I like feisty," the bouncer, Pam, replied and licked her lips. The tips of tiny, plastic fangs poked out from under the woman's top lip. Combined with the supreme paleness of her skin she looked pretty legit. Minus the brow ridges, of course. "You brought friends." Turning an eye to the cash she was collecting from the bar-goers she asked, "How many?"

"Three humans and a vamp," Sookie said, obliviously to the stunned looks from the Sunnydale set. "But they just need to use the phone. I guess only one of them really needs to go in. Buffy...?"

"No!" The three who were not Buffy said sharply, all of them hard-wired by now against any attempts at dividing or conquering. Even by blond southern belles.

Buffy was too busy staring down the bouncer to give them a proper 'you guys are so embarrassing' look. The bouncer, in turn was staring at Spike. "I haven't seen you before," she said and sniffed the air in a way that was sort of frightening. "You check in with Eric?"

Spike gave his own deep sniff.

"Vampires." Buffy said and Dawn could practically see her put two and two together.

The next thing Dawn's thoroughly human eyes saw was a stake-bearing Buffy who'd put herself between a teeth-bared Pam and a game-faced Spike. Her eyes were quick enough to see Sookie jump between Buffy and Pam and thankfully Sookie didn't change much adjective wise because things were getting a little too hyphenated for Dawn's tastes.

Everyone just kind of stood there at stalemate.

"Whoa," Willow said and then, "I didn't freeze them, did I?" She looked at her hands in panic.

"No," Dawn said, noticing Buffy, Sookie, and Spike breathing-- the women out of necessity, Spike, for the hell of it. "I think it's just check."

"What?" Willow said in a cautious whisper. "Oh! Chess metaphor. Gotcha?"

"You don;t want to get in this one's way, love," Spike called to Sookie. "Slayer's diminutive, but scary."

"Pam," Sookie said soothingly, ignoring Spike's words but never taking her eyes off him or Buffy. "I'm sure Buffy was just, you know, handing over that stake for, um, safe keeping. Isn't that right?" Her voice had gone a little high pitched and her eyes fluttered over the contours of spike's face. "And Spike... Spike is...."

Some of the tension dropped out of Pam's stance. "Spike is supposed to be extinct."

"Lady, I would not be throwing words around like that if I were you," Buffy said, all white knuckles and sharp, sharp pine.

The vamp bouncer started to move but Sookie cried out. "Pam, don't! She's a... a Slayer?" Pam started again but Sookie stopped her with more shouted. "She's Buffy, Pam! Jesus Christ Shepherd of Judea. She's _Buffy_. You know, Slayer of the Vampyres."


	3. Slayer of Vampyres

**Disclaimer: **See part 1

**Note on Canon and timeline: **I'm pretty much going off the radar as I please. This is post-series for Buffy by two years/eight years after the time jump. As for SVN, I'm doing my own blend of SVN/True Blood here. We're on a TB time line (vamps out in '06) and I'm reserving the possibility of pulling in a few TB characters but we're using SVN canon. So let's say this is a a few years after book nine. Basically, your best off if you just disregard this statement, turn off the part of your brain devoted to timelines and enjoy the ride ;)

**Chapter 3**

**March 2011**

As she retrieved the laptop from Eric's office, it occurred to Sookie that she had reason to be a little suspicious of the strangers who'd showed up in the parking lot, reasons beyond the fact that they appeared to be a bunch of fictional characters come to life. She'd heard confirmation of the existence of the documentary in all the women's minds plus gotten a distinct impression of recognition from the vampire, Spike. But none of them seemed aware that the film had gone far beyond their group of friends. If they didn't know, they had to have all been living in someplace more back water even than Bon Temps for the last year. Maybe, literally, under a rock. It was as if the four of them had skipped an entire year of life....

Such a thing wasn't exactly unthinkable. There were, of course, several varieties of magic in the world. But there were also several varieties of practical joker and Sookie knew a few of the best. Still, until Pam or Eric cracked (or until one of the 'strangers' betrayed herself with a stray thought) Sookie figured she'd play along. After all, Eric had spared no expense, getting the original actors and everything, so she might as well let him have his laugh.

Sookie brought Eric's laptop to the booth where the strangers were waiting --looking and feeling all sorts of stunned. "Wow, shiny," the red head, Willow, said in appreciation of Eric's rather flashy computer.

"Eric's not a 'sparing expense' kind of person. I'm just surprised he didn't get Apple to make it in red." Sookie joked, politely ignoring the youngest girl, Dawn, who was shoving at the bleach blond Spike and commanding him to "stop fidgeting."

"This Eric guy," Buffy asked, her flippant tone getting her an intensified stare from Pam who was standing, looming really, over the end of the table. "He owns the bar?"

"Sure does," Sookie confirmed. It'd been a while since she'd been around people who didn't know who Eric was.

"So vampire, then?" Buffy concluded. _Of course Dawn's birthday couldn't be simple. It probably made the cover of Evil Undead magazine. "Former Key Turns 18, Let the Mayhem Commence."._

Sookie started laughing before she could stop herself at the images in the Slayer's head of vampire tabloids. She'd never heard of "Evil Undead" but Sookie wouldn't be surprised at all if "The Daily Fang" was running just such a story today, especially if the actress who'd played Dawn really was turning eighteen.

"Eric is the Sheriff of Area Five," Pam said, not at all helpfully judging by the looks she got from everyone but Sookie. "He is the second most powerful vampire in the state after the King," she said a little indignantly this time.

Dawn and Willow put on impressed faces for Pam's benefit and wondered, silently, what Pam meant by 'King' but Sookie caught the look that passed between Buffy and Spike. _Must be the source of the heebie-jeebies I'm getting_, Buffy thought. "Stop fidgeting," she told Spike and kicked him under the table.

"Ow." He kicked her back.

Oddly enough, Buffy smiled, just a little, but it was a smile.

None of the four of them was the clearest of broadcasters. Spike, being a vampire and all, was a given. But there was something very strange about the feel of his mind. He wasn't a pocket of dead air in her mental field. If anything, his mind seemed like a jumble of thoughts, spinning so quickly that it blurred too fast to comprehend but tugged at her attention nonetheless. Strange.

"Speaking of my master," Pam said, breaking into Sookie's mental probing of the guest list. "What are you getting him for his birthday? I haven't come up with anything better than a dashboard mount for his GPS."

"He does hate when it falls off the windshield," Sookie said encouragingly with maybe a little bit of patronizing mixed in. She'd been doing her best not to indulge Pam's desire to throw Eric a birthday party seeing as Eric had been dead for a thousand years and not even he knew when his birthday had been.

Pam saw right through her, striking a hands on hips pose which was extra imposing considering her outfit which was mostly black leather and already more than a little dominatrix-like. "Well, I'm sure I could be just as unconcerned about the whole thing if I was having sex with him too. I suppose you think you don't even need to get him a gift."

"Anya?" Dawn asked, looking Pam up and down with mock hopefulness. Spike turned a laugh into a cough.

Sookie, every ounce of blood rallying in her cheeks, tried not to look at Pam in horror. It wouldn't help. Pam's talent didn't lay in picking up subliminal distress signals. Or in social grace.

When she could breathe, Sookie let out a long suffering sigh. "I don't need to get Eric a gift because it's not his birthday. He doesn't have a birthday. And the party's a nice idea but if you throw him a party, he'll only be confused." She could see him already, raising an eyebrow at a baloon-and-crepe-papered Fangtasia and demanding of her, "Lover, please explain the necessity of the flaming pastry."

Okay, so Eric had seen birthday parties before but Dracula's birthday was one thing. His own, nuh-uh.

The conversation should have ended there but Pam persisted. "Eric gives you gifts for your birthday. Don't you think it's rude not to reciprocate? Humans. You think you've cornered the market on feelings. Gift giving is a time honored method of expressing affection and all people seek affection."

Sookie waited to see if Pam was finished with her lecture before smiling tightly at the newcomers. "Pam is a dedicated reader of 'Dear Abby'."

'Oh' Dawn mouthed and nodded clearly happy for the clarification.

"Right smart bint, that one," Spike said with no trace of sarcasm. "If you ladies have business to settle and all, I'll just pop outside for a smoke, yeah?" The vampire's gestures included Sookie and Pam's conversation, his pack of cigarettes, and the back door. Sookie could see why the Summers women nagged him about fidgeting.

"I've got the article right here," Sookie said, halting his motion. She just hoped Pam was done interrupting.

Sookie turned the display to the side of the booth so the four strangers could see it better. There was still quite a lot of craning of necks and shielding of glare. Soon, by silent consent, Willow began to speak.

"Okay," Willow said. "This is from a list called '2010's best non-traditional news sources.'" The woman (witch, Sookie recognized the haze of magic around her mind) adopted an animated reporter voice, dropped it, blushed, then picked it up again with a little less gusto. "In the internet blogs- _blogsphere?_ there was nothing hotter to blog about last year than conspiracy theories on a little video you might have heard of called 'Buffy: Slayer of the Vampyres.' Hey, wow, it's really here!" Willow said, breaking narrative. "Sorry.

"It's been almost a year now since "Buffy: Slayer of the Vampyres" became the internet's most downloaded video but you remember it, I'm sure. The editing was poor, the time line incoherently jumbled, and watching it, you kind of got the sense that you'd been dumped into the middle of an urban legend or some inside joke that you were never given quite enough background to understand? Yeah, that one.

"It was never very clear if the "documentary" was meant to be frightening or funny but it seemed to succeed at humor only unintentionally which catapulted it immediately into legendary cult comedy status in dorm rooms across America. After a few months relegated to semi-legal download hubs on every college campus, "Vampyres" exploded onto the virtual world stage when several conspiracy sites started posting rumors that Tucker Wells had disappeared. Wells was widely regarded as a genius, a man who understood the young adult mindset well enough to create a self promoting film that had so thoroughly laid claim to the public psyche that its dialogue had crept into vernacular and it had been viewed in nearly every household in the nation.

"Wells' rumored disappearance prompted a wave of amateur and semi-professional analysis of the footage, and a whole slew of blogs sprang up to analyze the analysis. The acting, often remarked upon as being quite outstanding given the film's low budget appearance, quickly came under suspicion. Some claimed that the actors who so deftly appeared to be surprised by or unaware of the camera were indeed real people, human and vampire, caught unawares.

"Further rumors of Slayers, women with super human abilities whose mission it is to kill vampires for the good of humanity, lit up the web world wide. With a few keystrokes on Google, you'll find thousands of blogs that report the bloody... or should I say 'dusty' endeavors of these women. Some bloggers claim that Slayers in vampire-friendly countries like America and England have run afoul of government agencies and have quietly been brought up on criminal charges. Others claim the women are being wooed by fanatical religious groups. Still other sites claim that the documentary was made by Andrew, not Tucker, Wells and that this man, the younger Wells, will be directing a full length remake. Casting wish-lists by zealous fans name everyone from Angelina Jolie to Anna Kendrick as possible Buffys.

"What do you think? Comment on your choices for the Buffy cast below or follow the links to check out our picks of the best Buffy blogs." Willow's fingers scrolled down the track pad for a moment before she looked up with a small smile to indicate she'd finished. Her audience sat open-mouthed.

"2011?" Dawn squeaked.

"People? I'm people now, am I?" Spike managed to sound both cynical and impressed.

"Angelina Jolie?" Buffy was less impressed.

It was at that moment of stunned silence broken by the occasional exclamation of disbelief that Eric stepped out of his office. His presence at Sookie's back was like a pair of warm hands on her shoulders. Even so, she was annoyed enough to tartly thank him for gracing them with his presence. She'd told him who'd shown up in the parking lot. He'd either stayed in his office to let the joke run for a bit or because he wanted to spend as little time explaining things to the strangers as possible.

The strangers' slack-jawed expressions didn't have to change much to accommodate Eric. Buffy and Spike were on their feet faster than Sookie could follow but they didn't quite manage to stop gaping. Sookie understood, nearly six-and-a-half feet of undead Viking will do that to a person.

Sookie opened her own mouth to begin introductions, but Eric beat her to it. "A not-quite-human," he said, looking at Dawn. "A practicing witch," Willow got a glare she only deserved by Eric's not-too-fond-of-witches standards. "And the woman who killed Dracula." Buffy stared calmly back at Eric.

Sookie tried thinking about warm woolen mittens and shiny red cars and all kinds of soothing things. Maybe this Buffy actually was some kind of superwoman but she'd also won the 'Person Eric Likes Least at the Moment' lottery and seemed to have no idea.

After an absurd moment in which Buffy and Eric sized one another up and Spike looked ready to fidget his way into a fight, Eric broke the stare down to look at the other vampire. "William the Bloody," he said with a nod. "I see you survived the Culling. You're welcome under my protection, of course. Though I wish you hadn't brought your pet Slayer along."


End file.
